Shawnee and SimonAs mentioned in an earlier post, one of our dogs, Shawnee, has been diagnosed with severe elbow dysplasia which has greatly curtailed her activity levels, or rather her ability to tolerate activity.  She is unable to run freely without suffering great pain afterwards, so instead we give her short leash walks now.  Neither she, nor our retriever, Simon, are used to this, as typically they roam free on our walks around the dirt roads and hiking trails near our home in Nederland.  Some surprising behaviors have resulted that I hadn’t expected in regards to Simon’s behavior…

Simon was seven years old when we added Shawnee to our household as a 3-month old puppy.  Like many things in life, I didn’t really consider what it would be like to bring home a new puppy, or what its effect would be on Simon, who had been top dog and only dog to that point.  Shawnee, being an active, curious puppy tormented Simon to no end, chewing on his ears, his legs, his tails.  This would go on for what seemed like hours, until Simon would give her a “correction.”  Which is to say, he would loudly growl at her to the point, where she backed off.  Of course, this didn’t last, and before long, she would be at it again.  During all of this sparring and pestering, never once, did the fur fly or the blood flow.

As they got older, Shawnee grew to almost the same height and weight as Simon, and their interactions would turn into wrestling and sparring matches, with them leaping and tumbling around with each other.  But a strange thing happened afterwards.  Wherever Simon would eventually lie down, Shawnee would lie down practically on top of him.  No matter where he was in the house, this would happen.  I used to think he was irritated, but then I noticed the two of them lying together on one dog bed (even though we have two), with Simon’s chin lovingly lying across the top of her back as they peacefully slept.

Frequently on our dog walks, we come across other neighbors and dogs out walking.  Normally, this is no problem as the dogs sniff, and run around.  However, since Shawnee is now on leash, some of the dogs get a bit in her face, and being the passive thing she is, she just sort of flops on the ground on her back.  But big brother, Simon, will have none of it.  Whenever, he senses another dog being aggressive with her, where she can’t run away because of being on leash, he lashes out at the other dog.  I was stunned because I had never seen this behavior from him with other dogs before.  And it seems to be directly related to defending Shawnee while she’s on leash, knowing she can’t defend herself or run away.  I finally stopped taking them together, and as soon as I took Simon on his own again, the fighting behavior disappeared.

So, it made me wonder, is there such a thing as sibling love among dogs, like there is among humans?  Apparently, it can be quite difficult bringing a second dog into a household, to the point, where there can be extreme fighting between the two.  But in the case of Shawnee and Simon, an enduring love and defense of that love seem to have resulted instead…

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